Chinese regulatory authorities completed the first set of rules for regulating generative artificial intelligence on Thursday, as the country seeks to strengthen oversight of this rapidly growing technology. The influential Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced that it collaborated with several other regulatory bodies to create new regulations, which will come into effect on August 15.

Generative artificial intelligence is a rapidly growing area of technology in which artificial intelligence services provide content generation, such as text or images.

ChatGPT, developed by the American company OpenAI, is the most well-known example and allows users to input questions and receive responses from the chatbot.

These services are trained on vast amounts of data. However, the success of ChatGPT has led to the emergence of a number of competing services, raising concerns among global regulatory bodies about potential risks associated with this technology.

Chinese technology giants have also joined the trend, announcing plans and launching their own generative AI services.

Nevertheless, China, which tightly controls its domestic internet through censorship and regulations, closely monitors the development of artificial intelligence. Chinese regulatory authorities are concerned about the possibility that these services could generate content that contradicts Beijing’s positions or ideology.

This is partly why Chinese technology companies have been cautious in launching their own ChatGPT-like services. Instead of offering full services widely available to the public, Chinese companies are focusing on utilizing the technology in the enterprise environment and for specific purposes.

For example, this month Alibaba launched an artificial intelligence called Tongyi Wanxiang, which can generate images based on input, but it is only available to corporate customers as part of beta testing.

Source: CNBC.com